Conference on International North South Transport Corridor

The Embassy of India in Moscow in association with Economic Diplomacy Division of Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, organized a Conference on International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC) on December, 7, 2016 at Moscow, Russian Federation. The event was supported and attended by Mr. Alexey Tsydenov, Deputy Minister, Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation, H.E. Mr. Polad Bulbulogly, Ambassador of the Republic of Azerbaijan to the Russian Federation and H.E. Mr. Mehdi Sanaee, Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Russian Federation. Representatives from many of the INSTC partner countries also participated in the event.

More than 200 interested people participated in the Conference from a cross-section of Russian Government establishment including the Ministry of Transport, JSC JSC Russian Railways, JSC Glonass, Federal Customs Service of Russian Federation and many of the federal regions from the Russian Federation. In addition think-tanks, academia, members of the media and business community from many of the INSTC countries as well as some non-INSTC countries also attended the event.

The existence of clear political will from the Participating Countries for the success of the Corridor was reinforced through the speeches of the respective representatives. At the inaugural session, Mr Alexey Tsydenov, Deputy Minister of Transport of Russian Federation reaffirmed the commitment towards early operationlisation of the INSTC project. Referring to other similar transnational transport corridor projects, he underlined that thousands of containers from China to Europe regularly move from the territory of the Russian Federation and emphasized that there could be similar type of movement of containers from South, South East and West Asia towards Europe using this corridor.

The Ambassadors of India, Azerbaijan and Iran provided a broad overview of various initiatives taken by their respective governments to remove the infrastructural and logistical hurdles to the free movement of containers using the corridor. There was consensus on the huge potential of the corridor in creating connectivity and promoting trade not only between the INSTC countries but many countries bordering the Caspian Sea and many of the partners from the CIS region.

The deliberations concluded with a strong commitment expressed by all the participants for creating a favourable regulatory framework and putting in place the necessary infrastructure for the success of the project.